Sixth Edition Do you have what it takes to be a HERO?

[Senkusha]

HERO system is a game for Super Heroes. You know, characters like Superman, or X-Men, or even The Power Puff Girls! You've got awesome powers and lots of fun! I'm looking at the current, Sixth Edition.

I bought this game system about a year ago, and never really got into building any characters with it. Why? Because of the math involved during Character Creation. Unlike many other games that I've looked at, this is one of the only ones (probably the only one) that uses multiplication and division! The game has a huge crunch factor, if that's your thing though, and I have no doubt that the game is tons of fun, once you get past the initial creation phase. Luckily, there's a handy little app for your phone (or desktop) that you can install.

Dice Mechanics:​

Beyond that, let's look at this system! The game is heavily based on Super Powers, special abilities that normal humans typically don't have. The claim is that you can create any character your little imagination can dream up. And, yes, I'm impressed. In capable hands, you could create Ranma Saotome, a martial artist from the anime Ranma 1/2. It was done for me by an experienced HERO master! The system uses a 3d6 Roll Under mechanic, just like a few other popular systems do, such as GURPS, however, the nice thing about HERO is that it does NOT have a ton of potentially conflicting expansion books filled with a cornucopia of options. So, once you get into it, this might be a great system for solo-role play, or even for use on a forum, such as this one (hint, hint). But, I'd hope that whoever decides to run a game here, is really familiar with the guidelines.

Characteristics:​

There's a number of Stats, called Characteristics in this game, all found on page 40 of the first book. There's your typical entries, like Strength, Dexterity, Constitution, and Intelligence. There's some new ones (to me), such as Ego, and Presence. Then there's a bunch of combat related Characteristics, such as Offensive Combat Value (OCV), Defensive Combat Value (DCV), Offensive Mental Combat Value, Defensive Mental Combat Value, Physical Defense, and Energy Defense. And I forgot about the values that are usually calculated, but in HERO, you actually buy them straight up. Characteristics like, Speed, Recovery, Endurance, Body, and Stun. So, yeah, there's a lot to memorize right here, and we haven't even gotten to the interesting part of the game yet! But before we go into Powers, you need to know how to calculate any rolls that you need to perform. Get this: 9 + (CHAR / 5). It reminds my of fifth grade Science class when I was learning how to convert Fahrenheit to Celsius! So after you crunch your Dexterity score into that formula, then you need to determine if you rolled UNDER that! However, if you're using the HERO Designer, it conveniently has already calculated these values for you. I highly recommend getting this software. It's only like $25 AND it does NOT use a subscription model. Bonus!

Skills and Powers:​

Alright, so this is the meat and potatoes of system. There's a ton of skills in this game, which are classified into five different categories. Agility Skills, Background Skills, Combat Skills, Intellect Skills, and Interaction Skills. Each category is based on a related Characteristic, for example Agility Skills use Dexterity for competence.

Technically, Powers are very much like Skills, but unlike Skills, that only measure learned abilities, Powers are usually something more innate. "Maybe she's born with it?" It's definitely not Maybelline. These are the really cool things, like energy bolts, shape shifting, or even magical spells. The cool thing about how Powers are defined is that they are fairly open-ended. They are flexible, and designed to be malleable. For example, I have a character, Hikari Amaterasu, who's a Solar Mage, and one of her abilities is the SuperNova spell. I can create what that feels like using this system-- at least, so I'm told by veterans. Which I'll probably spend some time reading the core books and figuring out how to do just that. Who knows, maybe I'll even get a game started up? Anyway, the point is that I can totally customize how this SuperNova thing looks and feels. I get to decide how much damage this thing is going to do, and knowing Hikari, it's flat out going to be nuclear-- like everything else she does. Completely overwhelming. So I could spend the points to make this a massive damage generator, complete with the heat of fire, and the blinding light of the sun, heck, I could even add a minor gravitational effect too. These are just some of the things I can think up just by skimming chapter five.

Conclusion:​

All this being said, there's a ton of material to go over. You can do a lot with the HERO system. The core rules are covered in two books, and there's specific genre expansions too. The math is a bit intimidating, but with the software it doesn't seem quite so bad.